[MrFlippant]

[MrFlippant]

(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

[BAracer]

#82

"Lazerbeams4fun"

JohnK has been busy with Christmas approaching. The Porsche 935 is rubbed down and ready for the casting process to happen, as is the Chaparral 2G side project. Jeremy has also been busy designing and printing a light bridge for the timing system on his track. He showed us what he said was the 8th iteration of the design, and it has a feature on it that brought gasps of amazement from everyone for being very simple but so useful that once seen, you wouldn't want to be without it!

"Over to Gazza...................................open the picture then share.............."

"Nah, forget it!"

Graham Shed have us an update on his routed track build. Top tip this week was how to incorporate gentle banking for corners in order to eliminate the risk of negative cambers buy the use of everyday objects that you might find round the house. Ironically, at the same time as that, he was struggling with straights that had cambers in them when he didn't want them. Lots of tips for how to flatten out a straight and keep it flat.

"Gazza....?"

".......Nope"

"Dewann......?"

".........5 minutes"

Greg's Tip of the Week was the answer to whether you can you run a track with both an analogue powerbase and a digital powerbase installed on it at the same time. Spoiler alert...listen to Greg's tip first before you try this at home! Garth's Tip of the Week was a solution to identify both lane colour and direction with a stickers, which once everyone thought about it, was ingenious.

In Club Corner, Our Alan, ably assisted by Greg, gave a presentation of the Classes they race at Nascot Wood Slot Club. Clear explanations on the rules for each class, whether the cars within each class provide for exciting racing, how they develop existing classes or introduce new ones to keep everyone interested and to keep the racing competitive, but most importantly, FUN. Dewann enjoyed the recent Halloween race meeting at Electric Dreams...did he win any races? Nope. Did he win the raffle? Yep!!!

Club Corner highlighted the importance of races being enjoyable events. A question was raised about handicap systems that people have used in order to equalise performance between experienced and novice racers in order to maintain enjoyment in a club. There were systems for drivers whereby your race results are captured over time and, like in golf, you start with a negative lap count at the start of a race and you have to catch up those with lesser handicaps. In digital, there are simple software adjustments that can level up a race card, such as altering the size of your fuel tank or burn rate. There were schemes where cars carried different 'lap handicaps' which led to previously non-competitive cars being brought out or retirement due to having a beneficial handicap rating, which led to greater variety in grids. There was the simple 'crash and burn' which rewarded reliable racers and created risk for the out and out speed merchants. There were the races where you had to match target lap times which again rewarded skill over speed. 

On the scenery front, Greg highlighted a German Carrera based website he often goes to where you can download and print out hundreds of decorated building templates (if you know where to find them...)

"Gazza.........?"

".......Nope.........yes! Can you see this.....?" Finally, Gazza managed to connect up his satellite link and we were treated to sight of his 3D printed control tower and his Miner's Cottage.

[MrFlippant]

If you'd like to contribute to the Tip of the Week, please either send me an email to ggaub@ggaub.com, or send me a private message, and we'll work it out. We'd love it if you came on the chat and presented your tip yourself, but we can present it for you, if you prefer. Tip contributors will ALWAYS be properly credited, even if they ask for someone else to present their tip on their behalf. If you got your tip from another source, please let me know so that we can share that source as well. :)

[MrFlippant]

[BAracer]

#83

Hot Chip

JohnW has a problem...a 3d printer Corvair body, but struggling with the chassis he's trying. It's from a Pioneer Camaro but the wheelbase doesn't quite match the body, what can he do? Lots of tips that could solve many a body/chassis interface issue. JohnK has no problem with the next stage of the Porsche 935 casting process. Time to start thinking 'inside out' in preparation for the mold making stage, so filling voids, avoiding air bubble traps, he's done it many times before and it shows.

Neil and Dewann showed off some beautiful new purchases, Chuck showed off his 'ugly' project. He is currently toying with trying to find a suitably scaled head to fit on the rest of the body that is driving the car...and it seems he needs to go for a either a 1:32 driver with a big head, or a 1:24 driver with a small head!

Dennis touched on the current best selling cars that are flying out of the Electric Dreams doors...Revoslots. Not too much needs doing to them to get a fast runner, but he gave us his Tip of the Week following a eureka moment he had whilst daydreaming on his Hudy tyre truer; and it's not one you will find in the text books, but you need good ear/nose/finger coordination. Lots more discussion followed on tyre truing techniques, always useful and a necessary skill for all serious racers. 

Garth kicked of Club Corner with pictures of the racing pairs he runs on his track, and just dropped into the chat that real motors for him start at 39k...Greg wanted to see a video of those babies in full flight, but I am not sure Garth would be able to pan his camera fast enough. Mike was wondering about the benefits of suspension for racing on his plastic track. Lots of opinions and lots of tips for setting them up. One of them was to double up on your digital chips if you run 39k motors with magnets still on-board. Not sure if Dewann is at the stage where he needs suspension on is car. He attended his first race meeting at Farr-Out and duly started at the bottom, but is yet to work his way up. But he had his eureka moment whilst pounding round at the back when a similar spec car lapped his...it's not just about the car, it's about the driver as well. There's a learning curve, and who knows how steep it will be.

Big Den made a basic mistake in his recent race outing. Lent his 'spare' car to another driver, and was promptly beaten by it. But he did get on the podium in a later race, which highlighted an interesting observation regarding track voltages. Two recent meetings were run with different voltages, and each motor responded differently to the 2v difference between tracks. So some handled the resulting slower revs with no loss of characteristic, whilst other motors seems to get bogged down and became sluggish. Dennis knows the tracks of Southern California well. Fastest times are when the sun's over the veranda and its about 80F, slowest times are early morning, last evening, and straight after a pleasant lunch. Greg was recently finding his fastest times at the start of his race meetings, with grip deteriorating as the laps progressed. Lots of chat about tyre treatments and tyre cleaning methods, but no clear answers to why it might have occured. 

Jim Rose had been to a real race car event at Laguna Seca, where there were full size versions of all our favourite slots cars in all the photos he showed. Lots of stunning and rare beasts, search out the video on YT. Brumos RSR made his first appearance on a chat. Whilst he is well known for entering little cars in Proxy races, his son is getting on the the world of full size single seater race cars and is doing equally as well. Wayne also did really well at the recent DiSCA 3hr digital race at Derby in the UK. The cars he prepared and showed off how to us can in second and fourth. Not that I'm bitter, but I finished lower down the order in a position Dewann would be familiar with. John U, often on these chats, was the worthy winner and a demon racer!

Greg then invited the names of other YT channels related to world of slot cars that others might find interesting. Lots of names were offered and listed out for future reference, as there is enough knowledge out there to be shared around. Check out the list.

But finally, the star of the Chat was Big Den, with the best 'thingy' scratch painted body shell EVER. It has to be seem to be believed, and then you will have look again to fully understand what you were looking at!

[Kevan]

I've not seen this weeks yet...I will do 

[MrFlippant]

(Deleted old links to avoid accidental clicking.)

[Nonfractal]

A source of the gearing document I referenced during the chat.
Alan
https://londonslotcarclub.com/2021/08/22...t-no-idea/

Alan

[MrFlippant]